And many of us do believe, that despite the ardent nature of the contrarians to denigrate and paint the varnasrama dharma into something obscene and depraved, the rudiments are not dead and cannot be dead as sanaathana dharma would assert its ever freshness with a vengeance.
Since Sri Ram Ji used the not often used word 'contararians' here, and since this word was used to describe me by Sri Fehu Ji once before, let me also add my comments. I can very well take his words as abusive towards me, but I won't.
Firstly, no one is 'denigrating' Varnashrama Dharma or saying that it is 'obscene' and 'depraved', at least not me.
My argument is that it has outlived it's usefulness long time ago and what we practice to day is not Varnashrama Dharma. Casteism was born long time ago and the social system that started with much useful and benign aim, has degraded in to evil casteism. So, we see a whole class of people who are not even included in the system of castes! Mind you, I am not saying that this came about because of Brahmins, but it did come about, where a whole class of people are treated as less than humans.
We see Buddhism in 5 BCE came about mainly as a response to Hinduism then not taking care of the spiritual lives of it's lowly castes. This is why Gautama (wrongly in my opinion) did not adopt the Vedas as the supreme authority of his religion and adopted a very common language then to write his theism other than Sanskrit. This shows that the evil effects of casteism existed even way back then.
Hinduism then adopted, developing the Purva Mimamsa and the Nyaya schools of thoughts to compete with Buddhism, and adopted several 'moral' codes of conduct from Buddhism. This is one of the main reasons why Buddhism died in India.
So, when the Mughals invaded, one can see that the Dharma was not there. India was occupied by the foreigners like the Mughals and the British mainly because the Kshatria Dharma of uniting to fight a foreigner was not there. So, it was easy to divide and rule. So, we see that casteism again contributed to this where no one thought outside of his clan. And the handful of examples to the contrary are just that. Handfuls.
So, the final blow to the body of this pseudo-Varna Dharma, which should not even be termed as Varna Dharma, but should be called for what it has become, an ugly casteism, came about because of the advent of modern industrialization with the advent of fast mobility (trains, planes etc.) which allowed people to 'escape' their own villages and places of abode in search of better living. Once this happens, how can one practice the Varna Dharma as stipulated, where a Brahmin can not do anything else except spend his days in doing various daily rituals?
What about this concept of passing down a father's 'jobs' to his sons? (leaving alone the fact that the daughters don't need to apply). Is it possible in modern times where a father who has specialized knowledge about, let us say, Nuclear Physics, to pass down it to his children, who may not have any aptitude for the science at all? This worked in ancient times because of the simplicity of a village life where avocations and skills can be handed down. But, in my opinion, this was not God given. This is a debatable issue within Hinduism with two different schools of thought as I have mentioned elsewhere.
So, can we go back to the original Varnashrama Dharma? To do that the following must take place:
1. All four Varnas, including the Dalits must agree to go back. Now what do you think is this chance?
2. India should step aside, not taking part in the inevitable forward march of industrialization around the globe, fueled by advances in Science and Technology.
3. India should become a Hindu theocratic state. What is the chance of this? At present some of us even question the validity of certain Hidu stalwarts as one of the idea generators of Hinduis. In a small Forum like ours, we can not even agree to disagree, in civil terms.
4. Drive out other minorities from India, because in such a Varna Dharma oriented administration, they will not have any voice. Because our Shastras say that they are Milecchas and if a Brahmin ever comes in to contact with one, he should not live thereafter.
Is this all possible? I don't think so. So instead of worrying about all this, which is all but an impossible dream, let us define how do we improve our current lot in the current circumstances that we find ourselves in.
My two cents.
Pranams,
KRS
